Why The Bold Type is a Must Watch for Career Gals.
**Warning. This article has potential spoilers. But only one.**
The other day I decided to take a Bold risk. I looked through my list on Stan and decided to try watching a new show called The Bold Type. The Bold Type is a feminist show about three women in different stages of their career, at a magazine, who become friends. Most of my life I watched shows like Sex and The City and Girls but found myself not always in the mood to watch these shows because they focused more on the intimate relationships of these women and less about their careers. Don’t get me wrong, I loved these shows but as a romantic but also career minded woman I was disappointed that these shows mostly focused on these women’s sex lives and not enough on their career lives. I found myself identifying with the career driven characters on other shows but couldn’t fully identify with them either as they were more focused on having an absence of a love life.
But when I started watching the Bold Type, I felt like what these women were going through fully resonated with what I go through in life and also gave me something to aspire to in my career life and future work environment.
Their boss Jacqueline is a bit like Miranda Priestly from Devil Wears Prada, only that she’s all the guts, assertiveness and strength without the nasty attitude. Jacqueline pushes her employee’s but also has the kindness, understanding and flexibility you hope for in a boss. Jacqueline inspires and motivates her staff with kindness and shows the kind of leadership you would see in people like Jascinda Ardern.
Another thing about the Bold Type is that these women take bold risks in their personal life to be able to write their best work. The show follows their career progressions and the multiple fascets of a woman’s career life. There are love interests in the show but the love interests are more of a side effect to the professional storyline and take place more in the background of the show. The main driving undercurrent of the show is that these women are friends and the employees of the magazine act like a professional family instead of it just being a place they go to spend time to make money. The main objective of their professional lives is that their career is about personal and intellectual fulfilment for these women and not just about making money and the practicality of their jobs.
When it comes to the intimate relationships of these women, they engage in healthy relationship dynamics. For example Jane starts seeing a guy that has multiple relationships with women and when the subject comes up that they are not exclusive, Jane soon realises that she can’t juggle in her personal relationships and ends her relationship because she doesn’t want to change the guy she’s seeing, who clearly likes to see multiple women at the same time respectfully. She doesn’t compromise who she is for him and doesn’t want him to change who he is for her. The men in the show are respectful towards the women they are pursuing and treat them as equals. This sends a good message to young women that when a man is pursuing you they should always be respectful towards you and treat you as an equal.
Although I’m a new watcher of this show it hasn’t taken me long to really enjoy it. The fact that the show attempts to touch on more of a variety of experiences making the show more inclusive and relatable really makes the show enjoyable. It’s revolutionary when it comes to shows about women for women, takes on the messiness and mistakes of human experience whilst still uplifting the characters and their viewers too. My suggestion is to take a Bold risk and check out The Bold Type, it might be one of the best bold moves you will ever make.
